The Southern Appalachian brook trout population is surviving through the drought that has been plaguing Western North Carolina this past year, according to Great Smoky Mountain National Park fisheries biologists Matt Kulp.

It’s almost as though one can hear the creaking sighs of the old, hand-hammered barn boards in Craig Forrest’s paintings. His brush strokes evoke the weathered wood with its gentle warps, many knotholes, and varied colors.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park has known it needed a new visitors center on the North Carolina side of the park since the early 1980s. Finally, it appears the nation’s most-visited national park is going to get one, and the communities surrounding the park should be glad the time has finally come.

According to a recently-released National Park Service study, Great Smoky Mountains National Park is not only the nation’s most visited national park, it also tops the 388 national park units in visitor spending.

Nestled in the northern center of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Elkmont was once a thriving logging community that inspired Walt Disney’s screen image of Snow White’s cabin and now serves as a key research site for studying synchronous fireflies.

As springtime visitors flock to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to see the phenomenon of synchronous fireflies, researchers are hoping to learn more about how and why these beetles produce such amazing light shows.

The Naturalist's Corner

The eagles’ neighbors have known for months, observant birders and other Lake Junaluska regulars have either known or suspected, and I have sat on the news for a while as I consulted with North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) and U.S. Fish & Wildlife, but…

Back Then with George Ellison

A chimney standing all alone where a fire burned a house down long ago … a crumbling stone wall overgrown with tangles of vines … a flattened area on a slope above a creek or abandoned roadbed … all are likely locations for a dwelling…